Recognizing and celebrating our differences in the workplace
isn’t just a good idea – it’s good business. That’s because being able to
recognize each other’s strengths and vulnerabilities and each other’s differing
perspectives is an essential part of being able to manage effectively. Here are
four reasons why:

We all have blind
spots.

Everybody is different. We all grew up differently, had
different experiences, were educated differently, and ultimately made our way
to the job that we’re in for different reasons. That means that we each are
limited by our own experience, and the only way to reach beyond our own limits
is to communicate and work with people who have different experiences and ways
of thinking than we do.

No one wants to feel
like a cog.

Yes, as a manager you can treat the people who report to you
as faceless worker bees and treat them all accordingly, but that’s no way to
build loyalty or trust. You don’t need to be best friends with everyone in your
office, but better understanding your employees – what motivates them, what
they care about, and what they have a hard time with – can help you not only
better relate to your employees but also manage them more effectively with
situational leadership (link).

Understanding reduces
conflict.

In terms of personality types, knowing where you and your
employees fall on the DiSC model can make it much easier to understand why this
person might be butting heads with that one or why your advice to employee X
isn’t being received. The better we can understand one another, the easier it
is to see the causes of conflict and thereby avoid them, which can drastically
improve workplace culture.

Understanding helps
even the playing field.

When you don’t take the time to understand a person’s
strengths and vulnerabilities, the human tendency is to make assumptions. We
all do it. Without actual knowledge of the person or how they tick, the
subconscious instinct might be to make assumptions based on race, gender, age,
marital status, sexual orientation, or any number of other factors that don’t
have anything to do with how a person functions in the office. Conversely, when
we make an effort to understand the people who work with and around us as
individuals, it makes it much easier to recognize talent for talent’s sake and
to foster the growth of the best employees, not just the people who look like us
or whom we feel most comfortable around.

Learning to understand your employees is a process that
takes time, patience, and cooperation. To learn more about how to assess individual
strengths and vulnerabilities, give our office a call.